Modern Language Association

Proust and the New Novel in France

Author(s): E. Zants
Source: PMLA, Vol. 88, No. 1 (Jan., 1973), pp. 25-33
Published by: Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/461322
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E. ZANTS

Proust and the New Novel in France

THE

NEW NOVELISTSgenerallyagree as

to their major literary ancestors, and in this

gallery Proust takes his place alongside
Flaubert,Dostoievsky, Joyce, Faulkner,and Kafka.
The object of this essay is to ascertain what
the New Novelists could have found in Proust.
There is not necessarily any advantage in arguing
that they found their concepts in Proust; many of
the traits I shall discuss can be found equally in
others of the ancestors already mentioned. Insofar
as the major New Novelists, Claude Simon,
Michel Butor, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Nathalie
Sarraute are well acquainted with all of these
ancestors, a direct influence by one rather than
another is almost impossible to demonstrate.
Nor shall I try to make a New Novelist out of
Proust. The New Novelists themselves have been
critical of Proust as often as they have proclaimed
him their ancestor. But showing the traits that
both have in common reveals the modernity of
Proust. His modernity has been discussed before,
but almost exclusively in relation to the traditional
novel, i.e., to a novel having biographicallydefined
characters and a plot that is resolved.1This comparison easily establishes Proust as a forerunner
of the contemporary novel, but not as effectively
as does a retrospective consideration from the
point of view of the esthetics of the New Novel.
Indeed, his limitations within the field of those
very esthetics he revolutionized are obscure if the
former approach is used. For instance, Bonnet
considers he is showing a difference between
Proust and the New Novelists when he states that
the latter have an existential orientation.2 But
Bonnet ignores the phenomenological point of
departure used by both Proust and the New
Novelists, and fails to record either the similarities
or the differences in their use of the phenomenological base.3
Among the esthetic tenets of the New Novel
that can be found in Proust is the underlying
assumption that the novel represents a search for
an unknown reality in which the reader participates and by which the reader's vision of the

25

world is transformed. Works of art, it can be

claimed, have always done this, and the New
Novelists would be the first to agree. I am quite
sure, however, that Sainte-Beuve did not consider this as the fundamental criterion for judging
a work of art-or of literature, to be specific, but
it is nonetheless an assumption that lies at the
root of modern judgment of most works of art.
A second aspect of the new esthetics is that the
unknown reality consists of ordinary events
juxtaposed in such a way that they reveal a new
truth to the reader. Among the precursors of the
New Novel, Joyce was certainly the great master
of this technique, which he called "epiphany,"
but there had already been an extraordinary use
of it in Proust.4
The impossibility of knowing other people and
the related difficulty in understanding their acts
and words is another premise of the New Novelists
that can be found in Proust. It explains the absurdity of man's attempts to possess another human
being and the solitude that has become the inherent state of characters in modern novels.
The final premise of the new esthetics that can be
found in Proust is the attempt to grasp the form of
society as a whole by means of the novel's structure rather than by describing the life of one individual; generally this results in a presentation
of existences rather than essences.5 To a certain
extent, all four of these characteristicsof the New
Novel can be found in Proust.
I
Seen as a search for an unknown reality, Jean
Santeuil contains a statement that any New
Novelist might have quoted when looking for
justification among his predecessors: "une fois
devant son papier [Jean Santeuil] ecrivait ce qu'il
ne connaissait pas encore." This perfectly describes
Jacques Revel, the narratorin Butor's L'Emploidu
temps: he writes in the hope of discovering what
the town of Bleston is all about.
But Proust has Santeuil reproach himself for
these thoughts, "car elles n'etaient pas accom-

26

Proust and the New Novel in France

pagnees de la joie particuliere qui etait pour lui le

signe de la valeur des idees."6 A New Novelist
would reproach Proust for quite a differentreason,
for writing the story in the third person, thereby
placing the author between the reader and Jean
Santeuil and removing the reader from direct participation in Santeuil's story.
Proust attempts to rectify this error (error, that
is, to the New Novelists) in A la recherche by
writing a first person narrative, but he uses two
Marcels for the narration: one who already knows
all that will happen and the other who develops
as the book progresses. Consequently, Proust incurs blame for knowing prematurelythe reality he
seeks, thereby effacing the value of Jean Santeuil,
who truly did not know what reality he would
discover by writing. Phrases like "as we shall see
later" keep reminding the reader that Marcel will
finally discover the Truth and that Proust the
author is just showing us how it is revealed.
Sarraute reproaches him for pointing out a new
reality rather than permitting the reader to discover that reality for himself.7
Proust can, I believe, be defended. He did not
think he was depriving the reader of his creative
role in A la recherche, or he could not have condemned Victor Hugo: "Dans ces premierspoemes,
Victor Hugo pense encore, au lieu de se contenter,
comme la nature, de donner a penser."8 Proust
implies a condemnation of the early Hugo for
explaining the world rather than leaving the
interpretation to the reader, just as Sarraute condemns Proust.
Proust may be frequently at fault, but Sarraute's statement in any absolute sense is incorrect.
First of all, the stylistic trait of "convergences"
used so abundantly by Proust allows the reader to
interpret for himself, as Yvette Louria has demonstrated.9 Another stylistic trait having the same
effect is the use of "soit que. . . soit que . . . ,"
which leaves in doubt the cause or explanation for
certain events.10These methods of characterization
put both the reader and Marcel in a state of suspense. Proust never presents a character in his
entirety and does not draw conclusions from any
one encounter, for the next encounter often shows
the character in quite a different light."
An even stronger defense for Proust comes in the
last volume: "chaque lecteur est, quand il lit, le
propre lecteur de soi-meme. L'ouvrage de l'ecrivain n'est qu'une espece d'instrumentoptique qu'il
offre au lecteur afin de lui permettre de discerner

ce que, sans ce livre, il n'euitpeut-etre pas vu en

soi-meme."'2 Michel Butor could have been
paraphrasing Proust when he wrote that "le
romancier est celui qui vous rend capable de
raconter votre propre vie et celle des autres. C'est
grace a lui qu'il devient possible de dire ce que
l'on ne savait pas dire auparavant."'3 RobbeGrillet reiterated the same idea when asked who
was the "moi," the narrator of Dans le Iabyrinthe: "Je crois que c'est moi; je crois que c'est
vous."'4 For all three writers, the story in the
novel permits the reader to elucidate his own life's
story.
Claude Mauriac, often considered a New Novelist, wrote of Proust "c'est nous-meme qu'en lui
The objective of a book is
nous redecouvrons."'15
similar for the New Novelists and Proust, though
Proust claims a little more exclusivity than they
when he writes: "C'est son oeuvreelle meme qui,
en fecondant les rares esprits capables de comprendre [l'ecrivain], les fera croitre et multiplier" (i, 531). Of great works of art, Butor says:
"elles transforment la fagon dont nous voyons et
racontons le monde, et par consequent transforment le monde."16All these writers believe in the
power of their novels to transform men's lives, the
world, society.
II
At least one aspect of Proust's literarytechnique
that was intended to alter our view of the universe
finds an echo in the New Novelists. In the traditional sense, nothing happens in these novels, but
they are filled with descriptions of nothing happening. Ordinary things, people, or events are
presented in juxtaposition in such a way that a
new reality emerges, which, according to Heidegger, is what art is about. "The setting-into-work of
truth thrusts up the extraordinary and at the
same time thrusts down the ordinary together
with our beliefs about it."'7
What else does Proust achieve when he writes
that Charlus, "suivi de Brichot, de moi et de Sariiette, qui nous apprit que la princesse Sherbatoff
Etait morte a six heures, entra au salon" (InI, 227)?

Proust claimed he had never written the sort of

banal description typified by Valery's statement
"la marquise sortit a cinq heures." Nonetheless,
"Charlus entra au salon," "la princesse Sherbatoff
etait morte a six heures," constitute the same
kind of trite statements as "la marquise sortit a
cinq heures," at least when taken individually. Not

E. Zants
in context.The truthrevealedby art, as conceived
by Heidegger,never residesin one term or unit
in the comalone,but in the "setting-into-work,"
position of the terms into a context-in this instance,the juxtapositionof the two statementsof
ordinarydaily events, both of which are thrust
down.The PrincessSherbatoffwas extremelyimportantto the groupin question,yet her death is
relatedonly once in the novel: as M. de Charlus
crossesa threshold.Herlifehasbeenreducedto an
insignificantact by mentioningthe two events at
once. No authorialcommentarycould make the
reader experiencethe triviality of existence as
stronglyas the simplejuxtapositionof fact. Not
even Swann's death receives traditional commentary.His is announcedin the famous scene
at the end of Le Cote de Guermanteswhere the

Duchess rides off to the ball as Swann declines

an invitationto join her and the Duke in Italy
"becausehe will be dead by then."'8
Suchpoignantexamplesare not often found in
the New Novels, even if the mundaneelementsof
theirdescriptionscan only bejustifiedon the same
grounds,i.e., as a "setting-into-work"
by means
Butor's
of juxtaposition.
Degres, however, providesan abundanceof good examples."IIy avait
une gravurerepresentantle dictateur,et tu te
demandaisde dessinerles traits, sous la surveillancede M. Martin,deux etagesplus haut, tout a
l'heure;les deuxvisagesavaientsi peu de ressemThe reproductionis from the nephew's
blance."19
text of Julius Caesar,but we immediatelymake
otherassociationspreciselybecauseof the juxtapositionof ordinaryeventsin this book. Caesaras
a conquerorcorrespondsto the lesson on the discoveryof Americawhich is the pivotal center of
the novel. And PierreVernier,the narrator,will
appearquite as changedto his nephewat the end
of the novel as the two representationsof Caesar
do at the beginning.Indeed,the nephewthinksof
his uncle, Vernier,when translatinga passageof
Julius Caesarreferringto the "lean and hungry
look" of Cassius.These themeslead us to others
in the book, depending upon the individual
reader'sinterpretations.The historic events are
thrustdown in such juxtaposition;they become
equivalentto a high school sketchingclass. What
becomesextraordinaryis the unity, the relationshipsbetweenall the aspectsof civilization.20
Butor criticizedAndre Bretonfor havingcondemned the banal, the ordinary,"les moments
nuls," and for juxtaposingonly the exceptional,

27

with the result that veryfew people comprehend

his surrealistpoetry.As a consequence,ordinary
commentaryhas become necessaryto make it
understandable,that is, the exceptionalelements
have to be broughtback down to the "ordinary"
level to which Breton objected.Butor prefersa
novel composedof the "momentsnuls"-and the
descriptionof a lycee class certainlypromisesan
abundanceof trite instances.But, writes Butor,
"cette banalite qui est la continuite meme du
romanavec la vie 'courante,'se revelanta mesure
que l'on penetredans l'aeuvrecomme douee de
sens, c'est toute la banalitedes choses autourde
nous qui va en quelque sorte se renverser,se
transfigurer.... "21And, as in Proust,the juxtaposition of these banalitiestransformsthem into
into a truth.
the extraordinary,
As for the ordinary objects present in these
banal descriptions, Proust had acknowledged
their raison d'etre in the modernnovel long before the New Novel arrived:"Naturellementles
choses n'ont pas en elles-memesde pouvoir,"
writes Proust, "puisque c'est nous qui le leur
conferons" (iII, 857). Their presence provides
somethingto whichthe characterscan react,and
the contrastingreactionsinformthe readerof the
stateof mindof individualcharacters.Theprestige
of the Guermantes'townhouse in the eyes of
Marceltells us as muchabout his snobberyas the
husband's reactions to the centipede in La
Jalousietell us about the state of his jealousy-in
spite of Robbe-Grillet'sstatementthat objectsare
presentin the New Novel "pourrien."22RobbeGrillet'sclaim,however,was refutedby Butor in
an interview.23
Regardingthe role of objects in Proust, Leo
Bersanicommentson "the narrator'sdependence
for self-identificationon a stable arrangementof
things in spaceand the precariousnatureboth of
these arrangementsand, consequently, of the
stabilityof the self."24The interreactionbetween
charactersandobjectswiththe resultinginstability
constitutesthe fundamentalpreceptof characterizationof the New Novel. The ensuingambiguity
of a character'snaturehas causedcriticsto proclaim that "characters"have disappearedfrom
the New Novel. The problem is a matter of
definition:the traditionalnovel sportsbiographicallydefinedcharactershavinga particularnature,
whereasthe charactersof A la rechercheand of a
New Novel aremultiplestatesof mindjuxtaposed.
The Sartrianconcept of Being "en soi" and

Proust and the New Novel in France

28

"pour soi" bridges the Proustian concept of

characterization with that of the New Novelists.
Along with its multiple selves created for others, a
Proustian character also has a permanent self
glimpsed privately during occasions of involuntary memory and dream; this one permanent
member of the various selves has disappeared in
the New Novel. Leo Bersanianalyzes Proust's role
in the development of the technique of characterization through a relationship to external objects.
He points out that "the Sartrian argument that
consciousness has no content, that it is an activity
transcending toward objects, is anticipated in
Marcel's surprised realization that he does not
discover his love for Albertine by introspective
analysis of his feelings, but by noticing . . . the

effect on him of certain objects associated with

her.

"25

Proust has done the analytical work of preparation; the New Novelists have, therefore, dispensed
with the analysis itself and put the reader in
Marcel's place, i.e., in direct contact with the
objects and the reactions of others to those
objects, in the same place as the reader would
find himself in the world, without anyone to
"explain" the relationships.
III
Proust's characters relate to one another just as
the characters of the New Novel do. The dual role
of the Other is constantly stressed in A la recherche.
On the one hand, "notre personnalite sociale est
une creation de la pensee des autres."26A New
Novelist would leave out the word "sociale" in
describing Proust's characters, for that is the only
personality they ever recognize. Sarraute made a
similar statement when speaking of Dostoievsky's
characters, a statement that could well be applied
to her own characters: "De cette impossibilite de se
poser solidement l'ecart,
a
a distance, de se tenir
'sur son quant a soi,' dans un
etat d'opposition
ou meme de simple indifference, provient leur
malleabilite
etrange, cette singuliere docilite avec
laquelle, a chaque instant, comme pour amadouer
les autres, pour se les concilier, ils se modelent
sur
l'image
d'eux-memes que les autres leur
renvoient"
(L'Ere du soupgon,pp. 34-35).
If character is nothing but the reflection of
others, conversely it is impossible to know another person-and this is as true in Proust as in
any New Novelist. Frangoise, whom Marcel be-

lieved he knew and who he believed thought only

kind and loving thoughts about him, is the first
person to teach him that "une personne n'est pas,
comme j'avais cru, claire et immobile devant nous
avec ses qualites, ses defauts, ses projects, . . . mais

est une ombre oui nous ne pouvons jamais

penetrer" (II, 67), for he discovers that she
thoroughly slandered him when speaking to
Jupien. Any New Novel will provide examples of
the impossibility of ever knowing another person:
Jacques Revel is quite taken with Rose Bailey in
L'Emploi duitemps and seems to believe the feeling
reciprocated, only to discover that she has become
engaged to one of his friends whom, it turns out,
he did not know either.
It is impossible not only for people to know one
another, but also for them to react alike to the
same event. Marcel discovers this when in ecstasy
he waves his umbrella at the beauty of a spring
day, almost hitting a passing peasant who is not
responding at all to the beauty of the day (i, 155).
New Novels never make this discovery; they
merely assume that people react differently.Part of
Jacques Revel's confusion inL'Emploi duitemps
can be explained by the fact that he reacts one
way and does not realize that other people are
reacting differently. But because he is confused,
and catches only retrospective glimpses of other
reactions, we, the readers, never know exactly
how the others reacted either but we have become aware, through reading the book, that we do
not know this.
Not only do people react differently, but the
acts of a given person do not necessarily correspond to his words, as Marcel learns. Proust,
the writer, admits he disguises this: "etant narrateur j'expose mes sentiments [au lecteur] en
meme temps que je luirepete mes paroles. Mais si
je lui cachais les premiers et s'il connaissait seulement les secondes, mes actes, si peu en rapport
avec elles, lui donneraient si souvent
l'impression
d'etranges revirements qu'il me croirait a peu
pres fou"(III, 347). Proust also admits that this
technique is false insofar as, at the moment he
committed an act, he did not clearly understand
the connection himself, thereby substantiating the
criticism Nathalie Sarraute makes of him for
interpreting for the reader. Explaining the relationship between his words and acts, he says
la verite
"aujourd'hui j'en connais clairement
347).
(II,
subjective"

E. Zants
A New Novelist never reaches the point where
he appears to know the why and wherefore of the
events in his novel. Jacques Revel explains that
his attempt to describe Bleston, ratherthan clarifying the experience he is trying to relate, has become a labyrinth "incomparablementplus deroutant que le palais de Crete, puisqu'il se deforme a
mesure que je le parcoure, puisqu'il se deforme a
mesure que je l'explore."27
The New Novelist has trouble simply putting
his words together even without acts to confuse
the issue. Butor expressed the problem in a comment, significantly in regard to Sarraute's Planetarium: "cette phrase qui vient de nous echapper,
n'est pas seulement suivie de repercussions, de
remous proches ou lointains, elle est aussi precedee
de preparations et d'attentes."28Butor once again
could be paraphrasing Proust who wrote: "II
semble que les evenements soient plus vastes que
le moment ou ils ont lieu et ne peuvent y tenir
tout entiers. Certes, ils debordent sur l'avenir par
la memoire que nous en gardons, mais ils demandent une place aussi au temps qui les precede.
Certes, on dira que nous ne les voyons pas alors
tels qu'ils seront, mais dans le souvenir ne sontils pas aussi modifies?"29
Butor repeats the same idea in L'Emploi du
temps, saying that "ce travail de l'esprit tourne
vers le passe s'accomplit dans le temps pendant
que d'autres evenements s'accumulent" (p. 171),
which explains his very personal interpretation of
Proust as "une recherche du temps perdu, mais
cette recuperation de l'enfance n'est nullement un
retour en arriere, elle est, si l'on permet cette
expression, un retour en avant, car l'evenement
retrouve change de niveau et de sens."30Without
disputing this interpretation of A la recherche,one
may still conclude that the difficulty of communication resides, first, in that time causes a
character'sperception of an event to change and,
second, in that it is impossible to know others.
Since words are the expression of our experiences
and since everyone reacts differently to events in
these books, the meaning could not possibly coincide in the words both as expressed and as interpreted by the other person because their frames of
reference would necessarily be different.
Likewise, the impossibility of knowing another
makes the conquest of one person by another
meaningless. Thinking of Odette, Swann realizes
that "il pouvait peut-etre la preserver d'une cer-

29

taine femme, mais il y en avait des centaines

d'autres, et il comprit quelle folie avait passe sur
lui quand il avait, le soir oi il n'avait pas trouve
Odette chez les Verdurin, commence de desirer la
possession toujours impossible, d'un autre etre"
(I, 364). Speaking again of Dostoievsky's characters, Sarraute similarly explains the motivation
behind them- and the same is true, once again,
for her characters: "C'est ce besoin continuel et
presque maniaque de contact, d'une impossible
et apaisante etreinte, qui tire tous ces personnages
comme un vertige, les incite a tout moment a
essayer par n'importe quel moyen de se frayer un
chemin jusqu'a autrui."31
This trait of characterization is difficult to defend as purely modern, for the opposite-the
successful possession of a happy love, for instance
-is almost nonexistent in literature. The duc de
Nemours appeared to have all the qualities and
all the circumstancesin his favor, and not even he
could win the Princesse de Cleves. This search for
an impossible possession is not in itself a modern
characteristic; it does have an existential explanation, however, that distinguishes it from many of
its predecessors.
A recurring theme of many modern novels is
that a character could not possess another human
being who is, by existential definition, different in
nature. He is aware of this and, nonetheless, he
still tries. This lucid trial, predestined to defeat,
and recognizing man's essential solitude at the
same time that he attempts to communicate, does
distinguish the modern character's pursuit from
that of former characters.Until the moment of her
refusal, everyone expects the Princessede Cleves to
succumb-which for her would have amounted to
complete possession by the duc de Nemours.
Odette and Albertine succumb, easily enough, but
the reader never concludes that they thereby belong to Swann or Marcel in any absolute sense.
Yet, Swann and Marcel still try for complete
possession.

In the New Novel even the attempt has disappeared. Not even the jealous husband of
Robbe-Grillet's La Jalousie tries to hold on to his
wife as a possession in the same sense; he just
has to sit by and watch, hoping she is not interested in another. His attitude in this respect is
completely passive. The recognition of the
absurdity of possession has forced the New Novel
to use something other than love as its subject

30

Proust and the New Novel in France

matter. In Butor's novels, love is a minor theme

played in the background. The major concern is a
search for reality. One could say the same of
Proust, except that Marcel and Swann try for so
long to find the source of reality in love. Proust
perhaps convinced the New Novelists, as he convinced himself in the role of Marcel, that love
was not a sufficientvehicle.82

IV
For the New Novelist, a biographically defined
character whose history warrants recounting is
inconceivable. "Le roman de personnages," writes
Robbe-Grillet, "appartient bel et bien au passe
. . . Le destin du monde a cesse, pour nous, de
s'identifier a l'ascension ou a la chute de quelques
individus."33Butor explains the disappearance of
the individual as the center of the novel by the
realization that we are necessarily dependent on
others for knowledge of our relationships with
them and the world in general.34
Strangely enough, then, the novelists that believe one can know neither oneself nor another
claim society as a whole as the only valid subject
matter. We are obviously well on our way to
Claude Levi-Strauss' structuralist theories. When
Butor says "il est indispensable que le recit
saisisse l'ensemble de la societe non point de
l'exterieur comme une foule que l'on considere
avec le regard d'un individu isole, mais de l'interieur comme quelque chose a quoi l'on appartient, et dont les individus, si originaux, si
Eminents qu'ils soient, ne sauraient jamais se
detacher completement,"35he is essentially proposing to study the individual's relationship to
the structure of the whole to which he contributes.
If a character can know neither himself nor another, he may at least know how they are related,
or so one may conclude. Proust had already demonstrated this.36
Describing the whole of society from within
necessitates a particularkind of structure. Balzac's
cause and effect, or linear structure,will not work
because, in order to grasp the cause and effect, a
certain esthetic distance must be created, the narrator or omniscient author must watch from without. In Proust and the New Novelists, the mass of
detail revolves about a central point which forms
a unity out of the disparate parts.
The narrator of Butor's Degres says that the
hour of class he is attempting to describe is

"comme un clou fixant mon texte et l'empechant

de s'egarer"; it is "comme un foyer au milieu de
toute une zone d'imaginations et de probabilites"
(p. 117). He never succeeds in fully describing
the class hour, but the relationships he uncovers in
the process are most revealing, as I pointed out
earlier.
Swann served as a similar pivotal center in A la
recherche; it was through or around him that all
the other relationships were established, as Proust
himself tells us in "Le Temps retrouve":
la matierede mon livre me venaitde Swann,non pas
seulementpar tout ce qui le concernaitlui-memeet
Gilberte; mais c'etait lui qui m'avait des Combray
donne le desire d'aller a Balbec . . . et sans quoi je
n'auraispas connu Albertine,mais meme les Guermantes, puisque ma grand'-meren'eit pas retrouve
Mme de Villeparisis,moi fait la connaissance de
Saint-Loupet M. de Charlus,ce qui m'avaitfait connaitrela duchessede Guermanteset par elle sa cousine, de sorte que ma presencememe en ce moment
chez le princede Guermantes,ou venait de me venir
brusquementl'ideede mon aeuvre... me venaitaussi
de Swann.
(III, 915)

The choice of a pivotal point through which all

the trajectories of the novel pass establishes the
circular form of the novel for both Proust and the
New Novelists-with two notable differences.
First of all, Proust's trajectories all take place in
the past, through a past point, in relation to the
writing of the novel, as Sarraute points out. In
the New Novel the point is in present time and
therefore progresses from the beginning to the end
of the novel, be it Robbe-Grillet's centipede,
Sarraute's doorknob, or Butor's class hour. This
difference completely changes the orientation of
the novel in regard to the reader by involving him
more intensely in its creation.
Second, and as a consequence of the first difference, Proust's circular structure is a completed
curve, a circle, whereas the circularstructureof the
New Novel tends toward multiple curves, or arcs,
none of which are self-containing as is the curve
of a circle. Proust himself stated the singulai
nature of the structureof his book when he wrote:
"Ne valait-il mieux que, ces gestes qu'ils faisaient,
ces paroles qu'ils disaient, leur vie, leur nature,
j'essayasse d'en decrire la courbe et d'en degager
la loi?" (lII, 986).
Butor's description of the structure of Degres

E. Zants
stresses the plurality of these curves. The description of the class hour becomes an increasingly
complex machine with infinite possibilities for further development. Only by setting up another
curve, the curve of the narrator'slife, which intersects the description of the class hour, can Butor
stop the descriptive machinery he had set in
motion.37

The plurality of curves is not by any means

restricted to the structure of Butor's books. He
himself analyzed Sarraute's Planetarium "comme
entoure par l'onde qui provoque l'installation,
dans l'appartement d'une vieille dame, d'une
porte nouvelle en chene naturel, et chacun des
evenements qui le peuplent, si minuscules qu'ils
puissent etre au premier abord, suscite un cercle
ou une sphere, s'inscrit sur une trajectoire qui
influence toutes les autres."38 Robbe-Grillet
prefers to describe the structure of his novels in
terms of grillwork; there is still a central point,
such as the centipede in La Jalousie, toward which
the vision is directed regardless of the grill.
A structure consisting of multiple curves is a
consequence of the pivotal point existing in the
present rather than in the past because, being
present, it is still directly connected with the
future and cannot, therefore, be a completed circle
as one existing in the past may be. The development of any one trajectory and the birth of new
ones is still possible.
The completed past that rules over A la recherche constitutes the major distinction between
Proust and the New Novelists, the former having
written a novel of "essences," and the latter,
novels of "existence." Although there are thousands of moments in A la recherchewhich exist in
their dynamic form, Sarraute is basically correct
when she says of Proust that "tous ces efforts ont
eu pour objet de ressaisir la conscience apres
coup. Je tente pout ma part," she says, "de la surprendre tandis qu'elle se forme."39
In his preface to Sarraute's Portrait d'un
inconnu, Sartre himself had referred to her characters as "existences" in the existential sense. Later
Sarraute could modestly admit that Sartre was
right when, in speaking of her characters, he
referred to them as "existences." "Bien entendu,
l'apprehensionintellectuelle,a posteriori et globale
de ces mouvements ... les transforme en 'essence.' Mais on doit parler d'existence si le lecteur
peut les vivre a partir de leur developpement et

31

jusqu'a leur aboutissement, sans savoir ni ce

qu'ils sont, ni ou ils vont."40
The same statement can easily be made of
Butor's novels. L'Emploi du temps is written in
an attempt to become conscious of what Bleston
is all about, the Jacques Revel does not even
succeed in reaching that state of consciousness.
When the reader finishes A la recherche, on the
other hand, he is quite sure that Marcel has become conscious of his vocation as a writer, and
that Proust was conscious of it from the beginning.
In Proust, the New Novelist could find his
basic orientation, for the characters' relative "essences" which Proust discovered are still a far cry
from the known reality described in the traditional novel. Auerbach had already measured the
distance covered by Proust when he wrote of A la
recherche: "There is greater confidence in syntheses gained through full exploitation of an
everyday occurrence than in a chronologically
well-ordered total treatment which accompanies
the subject from beginning to end, attempts not
to omit anything externally important, and
emphasizes the great turning points of destiny."41
The same is true not only of Flaubert but also of
the New Novelists. It is perhaps a definition of a
"modern" novel.
More specifically, Proust claimed art as the
sole means of communication for an individual's
vision, "the only form that can communicate the
essence of an individuality," as Germaine Bree
says.42If the individual is no longer the center of
the novel-and it is surprising how little we know
about the narrator-"protagonist"of A la recherche
-his vision of society from within the novel,
expressed by the relationships he establishes, is
communicated to the reader to varying extents via
the work of art.
The New Novelists have no other justification
for their novels though they vary the techniques
and degree, or kind, of vision expressed. Proust
had few, if any, imitators; but A la rechercheby no
means led to a dead end in the development of the
novel as a genre. In a questionnaire addressed to
several writers, Alberes wrote: "La Recherche du
temps perdu n'est pas un 'roman,' elle constitue
a elle seule un genre litteraire, et un genre litteraire deja epuise, car on ne peut la recommencer" (p. 244). Earlier in his Metamorphosesdu
roman in which this interview was reprinted, he

Proustand the New Novel in France

32

wrote somewhat the opposite: "Au mythe policier

se joint un effet d'optique temporelle que Michel
Butor est un des seuls a avoir su creer apres
Proust" (p. 160). Dealing with only the temporal
aspect of Proust, Alberes may well be right. But if
he extends the concept of temporal juxtaposition
to space, characters, plot, etc., it can be seen that
in Proust reside vast possibilities for the novel to
develop as a genre, and that in no way can A la
recherchebe considered a solitary work.
The influence of Proust is ironically underscored
by Claude Mauriac in his brilliant analysis of
1953: "C'est un fait qu'il n'a pas de disciples
. . . Quelle etait done sa methode, de quelle
nature son instrument? L'une et l'autre tendaient
...

a epuiser le spectacle exterieur ou interieur que

l'auteur se proposait de decrire. C'est-a-dire a

pousser toujours plus loin le travail d'elucidation,
sans negliger aucun detail, ni, au coeur du detail
meme, le detail et encore, si possible, le detail de
ce detail."43
Could there have been a more thorough imitation of this aspect of Proust than Claude Mauriac's
own Agrandissementpublished in 1963? The title
of the novel itself summarizes Mauriac's critique
of Proust. But Claude Mauriac was obviously
not the only "disciple" of Marcel Proust, and there
are undoubtedly more to come.

Universityof Hawaii
Honolulu

Notes
1See Jessie L. Hornsby'sarticle that approachesProust
and the New Novel from the point of view of the traditional
novel, esp. pp. 67-68, "Le 'Nouveau Roman' deProust,"
L'Esprit Createur, 7 (Summer 1967), 67-80. Unfortunately, she uses almost exclusively Robbe-Grillet'sPour
un nouvealuroman,which also speaks of the New Novel in
contrast to the traditional novel. This orientation somewhat distorts the interpretation,I believe, and this is also
true of H. Bonnet'sarticlein the issue (p. 470) of the BullePtill

de la Societe des Amis de Marcel Proust devoted to

Proust and the New Novel, No. 16 (1966), where Bonnet

picks Sarrauteand Robbe-Grilletas "les deuxrepresentants
les plus remarquablesde ce 'nouveau roman'"-though
the least Proustian in many respects; likewise Giorgetto
Giorgi in the same issue, esp. pp. 478-83.
2 Bonnet, p 470.
3 See esp. R. M. Alberes' "Proust: Roman artistiqueet

roman phenomenologique," in Metamorphoses du roman

(Paris: Albin Michel, 1966), pp. 77-94. See also: M. P.-L.

Larcher'spresentationin the Bulletinde la Societe des Amis
de Marcel Proust, 1966, p. 461; and Pauline Newmants
Marcel Proust et l'existentialisme (Paris: Nouvelles Ed.

Latines, 1952).
4 See my article "The Relation of Epiphanyto Description in the ModernFrenchNovel," CLS, 5 (1969), 317-28,
and Jane King Sherwin,"The LiteraryEpiphanyin Some
Early Fiction of Flaubert, Conrad, Proust, and Joyce,"
Diss. Michigan1962.
5 See also my monograph for a complete treatmentof
the esthetics of the New Novel: The Aesthetics of the New

Novel in France(Boulder: Univ. of Colorado Press, 1968).

6 Jean Santeuil, in (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), 301.
7 See Sarraute, L'Ere du soupcon (Paris: Gallimard,
1956),pp. 108-09, 114-15.
8 Proust, A la recherche du temps perdu, ii (Paris:Pleiade,
1954), 549. All referencesto A la rechercheare to this edition.
9 La Convergence stylistique chez Proust (Geneva: Droz,

1957), esp. pp. 64, 75. See E. R. Curtius: "Pour [Proust],

tout est relatif signifieque tout vaut, que chaque point de
vue est fonde. .... Le fait que des points de vue infinissont
possibles ne signifie point qu'aucun n'est vrai, mais que
tous sont vrais" (MarcelProust,traduit de l'allemandpar
ArmandPierhal,Paris: La Revue Nouvelle, 1928, p. 135).
CompareRobbe-Grillet'sstatementregardingcharactersin
general: "ils pourronteux-memesetresriches de multiples
interpretationspossibles; ils pourrontselon les preoccupations de chacun, donner lieu a tous les commentaires"
("Litteratured'aujourd'hui,"Express,17 Jan. 1956, p. 11).
O10See

Raymond Jean, "Chroniques," Cahiers du Sud,

No. 371 (1963), pp. 134-35, where he defendsProust precisely on this basis.
11 AlbertFeuillerathas
amply demonstratedthis in Comment Marcel Proust a compose son roman (New Haven,

Conn: Yale Univ. Press, 1934), esp. pp. 127-28. See also
the discussionbetweenMme Fabre-Luceand Messrs.Cattaui, Rousset, Mouton, Barrere, etc., in Entretiens sur
Marcel Proust, ed. Georges Cattui and Philip Kolb
(La Haye: Mouton, 1966), pp. 117-19.
12 in, 911. Also "[mes lecteurs]ne seraientpas, selon moi,
mes lecteurs, mais les propres lecteurs d'eux-memes,mon
livre n'etantqu'une sorte de ces verresgrossissantscomme
ceux que tendait a un acheteurl'opticiende Combray;mon
livre, grace auquel je leur fournirais le moyen de lire en
eux-memes"(iII, 1,033).
13"A quoi servez-vous ?" Nouvelle Critique, 12 (Nov.

1960),85. Proustand Butor are sayingthe same thing with

one difference:"optique"is typicallyProust; "et celle des
autres"is typicallyButor,so much so that he even explains
the terminationof Jean Santeuilfor this reason. Quoting
fromJean Santeuil, he wiites:" ' . . . vous avez vu l'histoire
se faire devant vous, c'est-a-dire, a deux generations,
l'especehumainese transformer.'Arrivea ce point, Proust
a senti la necessite de refaire son roman . . . afin de ne plus

nous montrerseulementla vie et l'evolution d'un personnage, mais,a traversce personnage,l'evolutionde tous ceux

E. Zants
qui sont avec lui dans le temps"("JeanSanteuilpar Marcel
Proust," Monde Nouveau-Paru, 8, 1952, 74).
'4

Lectureat Columbia Univ., 8 Dec. 1964.

15In his Marcel Proust par lui-meme (Paris: Seuil, 1953),

p. 132.
16 Repertoire II (Paris: Ed. de Minuit, 1964), p. 90. See
also the "prologue"of my monographcited above for a
morecompleteanalysisof this objective.
17 Albert Hofstadter and Richard Kuhns, eds., Philoso-

phies of Art and Beauty (New York: Modern Library,

1964),p. 696.
18Another example from Proust would be the scene
where Mme Verdurinis delightedly eating her croissant
while reading about the sinking of the Lusitania (nII, 772-

73). A similaranalysis could be made of quite a different

event: Marcel's mother meeting Swann at the umbrella
counter of Aux Trois Quartiers(r, 414), an event which
becomesextraordinaryfor Marcel,though not so much for
the reader,it is true, as in the other examplescited. But in
this way Proust teachesthe readerto see the extraordinary
in other common descriptions.
19 (Paris: Gallimard,1960), pp. 30-31.
20 See Alberes, p. 159, regarding Butor's and Proust's
use of juxtaposition.
21 See "Le Roman et la poesie," Repertoire II, pp. 7-26.
A voluminouscommentaryon other aspects of juxtaposition in Proust already exists, George Poulet's L'Espace
proustienconstitutingthe backbone of such commentary,
esp. pp. 19, 23-25, 124-25, and the discussionfollowing his
lecturepublishedin Cattauiand Kolb, esp. pp. 100-01. See
also in Cattaui and Kolb: Jean Mouton, "L'Optiquede
Proust,"and the ensuingdiscussion,pp. 35-57, esp. pp. 35,
44, 51, and 57. This article treats the relation of metaphor
to juxtapositionas well. Proustianmetaphorand analogy
often serve the same revelatorypurpose that simplejuxtaposition of facts, objects, and events serves in the New
Novel wheremetaphorand analogy are almost completely
absent. For a discussionof this use of metaphorin Proust,
see Stephen Ullmann, "The Metaphorical Texture of
Proustian Novel," The Image in the Modern French Novel

(Cambridge,Eng.: CambridgeUniv. Press, 1960), esp. pp.

124-29, and JulietteMonnin-Hornung,Proustet la peinture
(Geneva: Droz, 1951),pp. 45-46.
22 Denise Bourdet. "Alain Robbe-Grillet," Visages
d'aujourd'hui (Paris: Plon, 1960),p. 15.
23 Roger Priouret, "Revolution dans le roman?" Figaro
Litteraire,29 mars 1958,p. 7. See Jean Hyppolite,"L'Objet
dans le roman contemporain," Cercle Ouvert (Paris:
La Nef de Paris, 1957), pp. 9-20.
24

Marcel Proust: The Fictions of Life and of Art (New

York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), p. 23.

25

33
Marcel Proust: The Fictions .. .,

p. 106. See also pp.

107, 110-11, 134-35.

26 1, 19. See also Il, 912, and Bersani,pp. 26-27.
27 Butor, L'Emploi du temps (Paris: Minuit, 1956),p. 187.
28 "Le Planetarium, le jeu complique des paroles et des
silences,"Arts, 3 juin 1959,p. 2.
29 11in, 401. See also the commentof SamuelBeckettin his
Proust(New York: Grove, 1931),p. 47: "Even on the rare
occasions when word and gesture happen to be valid expressions of personality, they lose their significance on
their passagethroughthe cataractof the personalitythat is
opposed to them," etc.
30 Repertoire
(Paris: Ed. de Minuit, 1960), p. 184.
31 L'Ere

du soupcon, p. 33. The attempt at possession

found in the jealous charactersof both Proustand RobbeGrillet has another similarity:see Proust, in, 916-17, as a
third person narrationof the prototypeof Robbe-Grillet's
La Jalousie.
32 The opposite could be argued by implication,at least.
In two of Butor's novels, e.g., the narrator,attemptingto
discover reality and becoming more and more lost in the
attempt, apparentlymisses the chance for a true relationship in love: Jacques Revel loses Rose Bailey and Pierre
Vernierwill probablylose Michele.
33Pour un nouveau roman (Paris: Gallimard,1963),p. 33.
34 Repertoire11,p. 225. Gaetan Picon correctlyobserves
that Proust'ssocial world differsfrom society as presented
in the traditionalnovel because in the latter society is a
known factor to which the individualattempts to adjust.
In Proust-and this would be true of the New Novel as
well-"la realite [or the social world] loin d'etre revue
comme le modele d'une experience, est disposee comme
l'object d'une experimentation"(Lecturede Proust, Paris:
Mercurede France, 1963, p. 195).
35 Repertoire II, p. 83.
36 See Proust'sown analysesin Le Temps retrouve regarding the importanceof relationshipsand rapports for the
structureof his novel, esp. 11, 915, 925, 986,1,029-33, 1,04647.
37 FredericC. St. Aubyn, "Entretienavec MichelButor,"
FR, 36 (1962), 20.
38

"Le Planetarium, le jeu complique .. ., " p. 2.

39 Andre Bourin, "Techniciensdu roman: Nathalie Sar-

raute," Nouvelles Litteraires, 25 juin 1959, p. 7.

40 Sarraute,"La Litterature,aujourd'hui-ii," Tel Quel,
9 (printemps 1962), 52-53.
41 Erich Auerbach, Mimesis (New York: Doubleday,
1957), p. 484.
42

The World of Marcel Proust (Boston: Houghton, 1966),

p. 232.
43 Marcel Proust par lui-meme, p. 137.